When is a custom home truly a custom home? Many home builders will advertise that they do ‘custom homes’ But now that it has become permissible to even ponder upon what the meaning of what the meaning of ‘is’, ‘is’. Surely it is permissible to ponder upon the meaning of ‘custom’. As an Architect, my understanding of the word custom is just about as different from a builder’s notion as ‘is’ vs ‘is’ as defined by a former chief executive.
First off, a builder usually has a stack of ‘pet house’ plans that he uses for the ‘spec’ homes that he builds. He will flp and flop the plans, shrink them a little here, grow them a little there. Mix up the interior and exterior finishes. Maybe some variation in kitchen and bathroom fixtures. Maybe a flat slab, maybe a basement and maybe even a walkout basement. Delete a few windows here, add a few windows there. All in an effort to guess what blend of modifications that would appeal to an unknown prospective buyer. A process similar to what a car dealer might do with the range of car models and options for each when he orders cars to sit on his lot.
When a dealer has a prospective buyer walk on his lot, the buyer may choose from the selection on his lot, or he may choose to order a car just they way he wants. The buyer has a wider range of options than the selection on the lot, but the ranges of choices is still limited. If you want anything that is not on the list you can’t have it. So it is with so called ‘custom’ builder houses. The builder is not designing a house from scratch any more than the auto dealer is designing a new car from the ground up. The builder is simply customizing his ‘standard models’ per your request, as with a car. In a nutshell a ‘custom builder house’ is really a customized house. Some what buying a suit of the rack and having clothier take in the seams here and there.
A true custom car would be going to a specialty car mod shop and having an auto built from the ground up to your requirements. True custom would be going to a tailor and having a suit designed and tailored specifically for you. And true custom would be going to an architect and having a home designed on a blank sheet of paper with no preconceptions about the final design.
So it is with Studio 285 Architecture. I have no stock set of house plans and designs. Every house I’ve ever design has been an unique expression of the collaboration between myself and the client. Unlike spec and ‘customized’ house, the house is designed to fit the site, as opposed to the site bulldozed to fit the house.
It may seem to go against this notion of true custom to encourage the client to buy plan books, but I do. And also browse through other home improvement magazine and resources online. Visits to home improvement center and home shows are encouraged. From those resources and others they clip out fragments and examples of what they like and put them in a scrapbook. The point is not to put together a set of options, but rather bits of inspiration, ‘I wants’ and ‘I needs’ to better understand the minds eye of the client and design to their specific desires.
Initial concepts and ideas are still worked out old fashioned, and best way, with a number two pencil on tracing paper. I still used the old-fashioned T-square, compass and scale using a sketchy form of drafting. I have found that doing ‘hard-line’ drawing, as on a computer tends to appear to much like a finish product and thusly inhibits meaningful input. The client may also feel like you have made many executive decision on his behalf.